Next month Burlington, Vermont is holding a Mayoral Election, using Instant Runoff Voting. Burlington TV station WCAX interviewed all four candidates for Mayor and asserted to them, “Historians say Abraham Lincoln would not have been elected in 1860 if Burlington’s Instant Runoff Voting Law was in effect.” The interviewer, Brian Joyce, then asked each Mayoral candidate to respond to that statement. Unfortunately, none of the candidates knew enough about the 1860 election to challenge the statement. Instead, each candidate acknowledged that the statement is true, but went on to say that even though they are glad Lincoln won in 1860, they are still glad Burlington uses IRV.
Actually, Abraham Lincoln won an absolute majority of the popular vote in states containing 166 electoral votes. Only 152 electoral votes were needed to win in 1860. Therefore, using IRV in each state (but keeping the electoral college) would still have resulted in a victory by Lincoln. The only states that Lincoln carried by less than an absolute popular vote majority were New Jersey, California, and Oregon, but they only had 14 electoral votes together, so Lincoln could have lost them and still been elected. As it was, Lincoln only got 4 electoral votes in New Jersey anyway, out of 7, because of a partial fusion slate of Lincoln’s opponents in that state.
Lincoln’s opponents (sometimes all three, sometimes just two of them) put together fusion slates of presidential elector candidates in Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Texas. Those fusion slates did not win in any state, except New Jersey. Lincoln did not win the 1860 election because the opposition to him was split. No one “spoiled” the 1860 election, even though there were 4 strong candidates (the Northern Democratic candidate, the southern Democratic candidate, the Constitutional Union candidate, and Lincoln himself).
